NTs and empathy

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***Note: This is not an anti-NT thread. I'm not saying all NTs are like this, nor that no Aspies are.***

I have noticed that some NTs seem to be somewhat lacking in empathy. For example, my brother is also autistic, and sometimes he gets upset and yells. My parents don't try to comfort him, and instead get mad at him. I've noticed this a lot, that NTs often don't seem to show compassion for someone who is upset. What do you think?

I would agree. NT's are not always empathetic.

The degree of empathy they show depends, to a considerable extent, on their mood.

Probably the same with Aspies as well.

How autism and empathy is explained in books and internet sites makes it sound like autistics have poor empathy and NTs are empathy experts. And then people (Aspie or not) see it like that, and just believe it is like that.

I observe NT behaviour all the time, and I've seen people not being able to put themselves in other people's shoes. I think NTs are better at faking empathy, like to be polite or whatever.

I think lack of empathy is part of human nature, not exclusive to any medical condition. Sure there are people out there who take is a step further than the norm which then makes it an impairment for them such as narcissists for example.

For NTs it is quite difficult, too, to understand neurodiverse people. Although we generally understand a little better what is going on on the other side than very high functioning autists - and also how challenging an autistic child can be at times for the parents.

What makes you sure that your parents are not on the spectrum? After all ASD often runs in families, is highly heritable, and two of their children are on the spectrum. You might also like to have a look at the research construct "phenotype" of ASD. Then some people on the spectrum have bigger emotional regulation problems, in my opinion in particular the high functioning ones.

How do you handle this? Do you try to explain to your parents how and why your brother reacts like he reacts? Do you protect your brother in another way against their outbursts?

I agree with the post 2 posts above. There can be a difference between levels of empathy that alters between people depending on personality, and where it is an impairment.

There's some people at work that understands my anxieties, even though some of them don't have anxiety issues themselves, and there are others that don't understand how anxious I feel or why.

Thank you for your responses.

I don't think they are. They are introverted but very socially skilled and don't really show many traits. It's my mom in particular who seems to get the most upset at my brother. But I don't know if this is a sign of emotional regulation problems, or just normal.


I follow my brother around, patting him and saying comforting things. I also try to tell my parents to comfort him, but they don't really listen. They see things differently than I do.

My level of empathy varies with the situation. When a family member of mine, or my girlfriend is troubled by something, I can really feel their problems as my own. Also, when I'm talking to people, I tend to copy their speech patterns, sometimes without me noticing. This makes me want to get away from them, and shut myself out to get some fresh air, and be myself. I can only cope with my family and my girlfriend in those times. I haven't seen anything like this happen to an NT.

Another thing is that I react very badly to pity. For example, when homeless people want my pity (and my money), it frustrates me so much! I feel like they are trying to poison my mood, to make me feel bad for something I have nothing to do with. And I can't! I have my own problems to deal with. Another example is when I'm talking to people at the university, and they are telling me sad stories that are supposed to make me feel sorry for them. But I don't! I just can't feel a thing in a situation like that. That's usually the point when I say "bye" and leave. This social "let's feel bad together" thing just doesn't work on me.

So yeah, I think the stereotypes about aspies not feeling empathy isn't true. We just feel empathy on a different level. My empathy towards unknown people might be a lot lower than any NT's, but I think my empathy towards my family and my girlfriend is higher.

This shutting down on empathy for feeling overwhelmed by their affective empathy seems to be quite common with Aspergers and has been theorized by Kamila Markram and her husband (http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/ ... 4/abstract). Their Intense World Theory speaks here of "hyper-emotionality". NTs get less invaded by the feelings of others, their cognitive empathy with themselves keeps their affective empathy in check.

It is also typic that an Asperger capacity to feel empathy is often basically limited to family members and closer friends. That is not only because of hyper-emotionality. NTs get more of the background and situation of a person, why he or she is angry or desperate, and can therefore empathize better with "strangers" as with people which are close to them, while Aspergers cannot. Then ambivalent emotions of, let s say, a homeless person might be perceived as threatening by an Asperger. I mean, just because you dont have any money to give to them, you neednt freak out when seeing them. Your idea of their "poisening your mood" is a little schizoid, and is pretty representative for a larger group of Aspergers. How about taking other Aspergers as a model who react very differently and much cooler to the same phenomena?

Emphasizing mainly with one s own clan is generally considered as quite egoistic. Do you see a problem here? Developmental psychologist Piaget thought that story telling could bring people to solidarise more with others globally, so stories might be even more important for Aspies than for NTs. Buddhist would say that a better idea about their karma concept (or the interdependence of humans through their little acts also) and exercises in developping compassion (or a general openness) can compensate for that lack of cognitive empathy. Any ideas on that?

Thank you for sharing all these. It was very interesting and insightful to read. I am going to do some more research about the first two parts, but I don't understand the third one about ego.

Why is it egoistic that I don't want to empathize outside my kin? I deeply care about the people I love, and I would even give my life for them, but not for others. I can't divide myself into so many pieces, and I don't even want to. The less energy I spend on strangers, the more I have for the people I care about. Besides, I know that my empathy won't solve the world's problems, because I'm not a hero. I'm just a simple human being, living my own life like everyone else. I think saying that your family and friends deserve an equal amount of empathy as any random stranger is mean. People close to you should always come first, then you second, and all the rest last. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be nice and help if you can, but in the end, people should deal with their problems themselves without placing a burden on a random stranger like you or me.

Are you saying that I'm a bad person for thinking this way?

This is why I wish I were NT. You can be an uncaring as*hole and make Aspie people's lives a misery (and other disabled people) by bullying, and still be considered "empathetic" just because you're classed as "NT", while an Aspie can walk by a homeless person and not give him any money and be classed as "lack empathy". So sh***y.

From my experience with NTs, most humans typically lack emotional empathy for more subtle feelings and situations of others, and feel and/or show more empathy for more obvious feelings and situations. Like death or illnesses like cancer. It appears to be rather wired into people to feel really empathetic at funerals or with someone who is diagnosed with cancer or some other life-threatening illness. Or other obvious things like job loss, home loss, marriage break-up, etc. But with the more subtle things going on in people's minds and lives, most people fail to understand or care unless they are closely related/friends/loving partner, or have experienced it themselves. It's how it is.

No, but Sokrates when asked how his ideal of education looks like said: to raise a good citizen of a just state. One has to take care also about the just state. After all: what does it help, if your family is fine, but the environment you live in is getting worse and more and more fragile? For me friends and family comes first, too, but when meeting people out there I still want to be "available" to a certain degree and most of the time for others, be it for their grievances or for receiving their good vibes.

It is less about solving the world's problems directly, but about contributing by little acts to improve the world. E.g. a small good deed like being kind to someone who has not experienced kindness that day yet, can sometimes make a person s day, and prevent him from further going down a depression spiral. I am convinced that many of those little (and even not that many) acts can raise the energetic levels of people enormously. And really make a difference. Some Aspergers see that much better than most people, some not at all.

So I would like to challenge the energetic model outlined in this sentence of yours: "The less energy I spend on strangers, the more I have for the people I care about."

I don't think that either Aspies nor NT's are more empathetic than the other; I think it depends on the individual's personality, and I dislike it when people say autistic people are not empathetic, because not noticing or understanding others' emotions, is not the same as not being empathetic. Not being empathetic is noticing & understanding other people's emotions, and still not caring, like what you described.

What I do think, is that NT's are more wired to notice/understand the emotions of others, and that Aspies are often so overwhelmed with sensory and other excess data, that we are less likely to notice and less wired to understand. That said, personally whenever someone else's distress is actually brought to my attention, I frequently exhibit a whole lot more empathy than some of the NT's around me, who will offer lip-service to people's pain but won't put their money or time to helping them. I even cry when I watch the news, because hearing all the terrible things happening to people and I can't help them, it's like it's happening to me, or my family -- not sure how anyone can just sit there and watch like it's entertainment :/. So yeah, I don't get this Aspies-aren't-empathetic nonsense.

Not to be anti-NT either, because I know that the world is mostly NT's and that they have created the majority of the charitable institutions, etc., but I think the way the average person, fully aware and knowing how other people are going thru pain, doesn't seem to even care anyway, is much worse than an autistic person who simply doesn't have the neurological wiring to notice offhand. Yes we may need more explicit indicators (please tell me in words that you are upset, and then I'll know you are upset!), but that's not a lack of empathy.

Also, this:

^Yes, I pretty much agree with you.

I'm finding this thread very interesting because I question my feelings of empathy and whether they disclude me from possibly having AS.

What I'm very good at is seeing things from all people's perspectives. It totally frustates me when other people don't do this and complain about others without taking all factors into account. E.g. at work everyone was complaining because the tea lady took a trolley of refreshments to the wrong room. This particular tea lady didn't always work in our building, she was covering someone else. They just thought she was incompetent but I took into account that she doesn't always work here. I also took into account that my colleagues have a very good knowledge of where all the rooms are because it is part of their every day job to use those rooms. The tea lady spends 95% of her time in the cafe so her knowledge of the rooms isn't as pronounced as theirs. So it's reasonable to understand how a mistake was easily made. They all just told me she had worked here for years and she should know where all the rooms are and stayed angry about it. I thought what I did here showed empathy, but does it? Or am I doing something else? Is this a normal kind of thing Aspies can do?

Another thing I do, that I hadn't even considered might be part of AS until reading this thread is when ever anyone tells a story about an injury I always stop them in their tracks and tell them I can't listen to the story and ask them to save telling it until I'm not there. If they carry on telling it I'll cover my ears and make sure I can't hear them until they stop. I do this because once I know the details of the story I start to imagine how horrible it would for that to happen and it gets stuck in my head for days thinking about how awful it would be. So does this show some kind of emotional overwhelmedness? I didn't realise until now this was something that could be linked to AS? My lack of being overwhelmed by things was another reason I was unsure about AS...

It should also be noted that there are two different types of empathy. Autistics feel empathy they have problems expressing it. I get the feeling that a lot of NT's have problems actually feeling empathy but no problems expressing it-- especially when there's a social advantage to doing so.

This is a common problem in the West where we've pushed Roman ideals (personal ambition) over Greek ideals (the society itself). The truth is a society cannot function long term when it carves itself up internally by constant fighting based on personal ego.

I mean the logic is pretty simple: if a society has two healthy able bodied individuals and one kills the other for his possessions the society now only has one able bodied individual. That individual may now have more "stuff" but the group as a whole now suffers by having less members. That's where Socrates (I prefer the anglicized version myself), Jesus, and Siddhartha Gautama (the buddha) come in. All three at their core were social philosophers, all three from completely different areas and places and they all come to the same conclusion: fighting each other makes us all weaker, cooperating makes us all stronger.

We've known about this for at least 2k years, hell we even venerate those I mentioned, but that's part of the problem-- we'd rather give celebrity service to those names than actually follow what they taught. On a side not, and I don't want to wade too deep into religion, but that is precisely what Catholic confession is-- it's the ability to sin and not follow Jesus' teachings for a small bit of obedience to the church, akin to when they used to sell "indulgences".